


A Sure Thing

by garyindistress



Category: Basketball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Best Friends, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 21:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garyindistress/pseuds/garyindistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremy and Landry are just really good friends.</p><p>Prompt: "First real kiss.</p><p>Sure, Landry's jokingly kissed Jeremy in front of national TV, but how could he ever let Jeremy know how he actually feels.</p><p>Maybe happens somewhere in a private setting, just the two of them. Fluff and being BFFs."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Hey Jeremy,” Landry calls in the middle of that game he likes to play, the how many fries do you think I can stuff into my face at once game, which he plays very rarely these days while trying to keep that charismatic figure. Charismatic being Landry’s word of choice, not Jeremy’s, because Jeremy isn’t, you know, like that. He wouldn’t notice charisma in a dude even if the guy was reeking of it like Josh’s week-old gym shorts, but Landry, he has to give it to him, is probably one of the more charismatic guys out there. Still, Landry’s the one who gets all fancy and polysyllabic, while Jeremy tries to stick to monosyllables, disyllables if he’s feeling up for it. It’s a leftover insecurity thing that he doesn’t want to get into and doesn’t think about most of the time—yeah. But hanging out with Landry 24/7 the nerdiness, and wordiness, turns contagious and sometimes he’ll hear phrases in his head that come out in this Landry-ish baritone, like his deafening “Good morning, Amurrrrrica!” those first few days with Jeremy opening his eyes to a big scruffy grin on an unwashed face—“ugh,” and then he’d push it away, and Landry would, like, dig his nose into Jeremy’s neck and mimic an overzealous Labrador until he mostly rolled off the couch, except with one leg caught between two big cushions.

They’re probably spending too much time together.

“Hey Jeremy,” Landry says again, smacking his lips, and Jeremy gets a good look at the half-chewed state of those twenty Burger King fries. Then, thrusting the almost-empty carton in front of Jeremy’s chin like a microphone: “So explain to us again why you didn’t kiss Landry Fields on the Kiss Cam?”

Jeremy chokes on his Coke, and part of it ends up on Landry’s face, or mostly his shades because they’re trying to be surreptitious in the car. Landry goes, “Oh, c’mon, man,” and then there’s a wild dash for napkins, and after, he wipes off, whining, “Now my face smells like grease and the Coke that . . . was in your mouth.” 

“Why do you have to say it like, like, you make it sound even grosser than it was.”

That gets a laugh out of him, but only because it’s true. They drive the rest of the way with the radio dialed up, Landry rocking the angry chin and stiff lower lip he reserves for “I, I love you like a love song, baby—“ and Jeremy nodding his head, kind of sleepy, or too content, or something. Something good.


	2. Chapter 2

Landry won’t let it die.

“I think half of China/Taiwan is following us on Twitter.” He’s one of those people who says “slash” out loud. “For our ‘budding bromance.’”

“Wow . . . stop googling yourself in Chinese.”

“But it’s really fascinating. I know how to say ‘friendly kiss’ now. Hey, tell me if this sounds right—”

“I don’t know, man. My Chinese is pretty bad.”

“I watched that interview ten times,” Landry says later, while they’re waiting for the popcorn to microwave. “The look on your face when you’re like, ‘Uhhhhh, I guess we didn’t want to,’—“ and he starts cracking up, again, for the gazillionth time. “Just priceless.”

“It’s really not that funny,” Jeremy says, even though it is, but Landry’s sitting really close to him and it’s making him self-conscious about how they’re both wearing shorts and the hairs on their legs are touching, even though Landry’s obviously got a lot more. And now he feels self-conscious for noticing, but then the microwave beeps and Jeremy jumps up. “I’ll get it,” he says, and when he comes back with the bag he sits a couple inches away, accidentally-on-purpose. 

Landry laughs every time Aziz Ansari opens his mouth, and sometimes Jeremy gets it, too, that instant, but other times it takes a second to register, and click, and in that second he finds himself just listening to the sound of Landry’s laugh, how deep it goes.


	3. Chapter 3

Iman’s all about types. The itty-bitty waist that curves into full hips that make a swish-swish sound when she’s walking by. 

“I don’t think body parts’re supposed to make sounds like that,” Josh cuts in.

“How comes yours do all the time?” asks Bill, who’s been on the receiving end of one too many special “jarts.”

“Alright, I’ma ignore that. Like I was saying,” Iman continues, enunciating, “Girls like that, I’d run my hands up and down those curves like piano keys.”

“Oh, waxing poe-tic,” Landry says, carefully folding his jersey shorts and putting them in his knapsack.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Iman says, grinning. 

“Probably the only one who doesn’t know what you’re talking about is Jeremy,” says Tyson, getting up to leave. 

And then everyone looks at Jeremy, who looks back, up until now content to be just a listener and not active participant in the conversation.

“What?”

“Nothing, man,” Iman says, and it’s one of those moments where Jeremy isn’t sure he’s being played or not, when the whole locker room seems on the verge of cracking up over some joke he didn’t get. He reaches over and ruffles Jeremy’s hair. “Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

 

“Did you think,” Jeremy pauses, “that was awkward earlier? In the locker room.”

Landry has some difficulty tearing his eyes away from the TV, even though it’s just the same Audi commercial that gets played every break. “What?”

“When Iman was like, uh, talking about girls, and then . . . I don’t know.”

The commercial ends. Landry shifts in his seat to face Jeremy. Sometimes his legs look too big for his body. “Okay. Okay, I remember this now. Wait, that still bothering you?”

“No, I’m just sayin’. I don’t know why the guys got all quiet like there was some joke I wasn’t in on—I mean, it’s not bothering me, nothing like that. Uh, I don’t know. Just.”

He doesn’t expect the expression on Landry’s face to be a little concerned but mostly like he’s about to laugh his nuts off. 

“C’mon, Jer. They’re just playing with you. ‘Cause, you know, you wear those button-down shirts and jeans from the nineties—“

“Dude, that was once, everything else was at the dryers.”

“—and no one’s ever seen you flirt with a girl or anything—I’m not saying you don’t got game, sure you do, we all know that—“

“You’re looking really skeptical right now.“

“—but your general,” Landry pauses, thinking visibly with his hand flourishes, “ _image_ is of the more, let’s say, baby cub variety. Baby cubs don’t run their fingers up and down girls’ bodies like piano keys. Do they even have fingers?”

“That hurts, man. That hurts deep.”

Landry stares at him.

It takes Jeremy a second, and when he realizes how that came out he prays to God he didn’t just blush, at twenty-three years, a full-grown man, in front of his teammate, the two of them sharing a blanket on his couch.


	4. Chapter 4

“Rachel McAdams,” Landry is saying, and his voice is at once near and far, like he’s talking under a bridge. Jeremy laughs and then bangs his head against one of the giant wooden curlicue couch arms, because for some reason he has ended up on the floor.

“Landry.” Jeremy stops, hiccups. “Did you put something in those cookies?”

He rests his head against Landry’s knee, which is about as comfortable as the tatami pillows his mom used to make him sleep on in the summer, when he’d stay out all day and sweat through his shirts one after another. “There’s not enough time in the world to do your laundry,” she said, and he’d watch her hands, feeling bad. 

“What cookies? Did you eat my cookies?” Landry looks hurt. “It’s called a secret stash for a reason, bro.”

“I mean popcorn.” Jeremy pauses, to make sure that’s what he really meant. It is, so he adds bravely, “Duh.”

“Oh-kay,” Landry says slowly, like he’s getting it. Jeremy isn’t sure what “it” is, but he’s heard that same drawn out “okay” before, and it usually precedes something that . . . he can’t remember at the moment. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“No, no, ‘m good.”

“You’re not convincing me. C’mon, get up. This baby’s all yours.” 

It takes a while for Jeremy to figure out that he means the couch. 

Landry jerks his knee and with it Jeremy’s head rolls forward. “Hey,” Jeremy complains, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was using it as a pillow.”

Landry’s gently pulling him to his feet. “Are you calling my knee fat?”

“I think . . . your knee is just right though . . . for my head.”

“Two beers should not be enough for you to start hitting on me.”

“You know you like it.” Jeremy is grinning because he’s lost control over his face. He feels Landry’s hands on his back, nudging him toward the bathroom.

“I have a spare toothbrush,” comes Landry’s voice from behind. “But it’s a SpongeBob collectible, so go easy on it, okay?”

And then Landry disappears and Jeremy is looking into an orangeish reflection of himself over the bathroom sink. He looks older than he remembers looking, and it’s especially at odds with this moment, right now, when he’s feeling like a little kid again. Like as a kid when he’d go to sleep and after his mom kissed him and closed the door, he’d watch the block of light from the kitchen narrow into a thin bar and then a line and then complete darkness. And for the few minutes it took for him to fall asleep he wondered if she was ever going to come back, because he couldn’t see her anymore. Sometimes he could hear her talking outside with his dad, or the soft muted sounds of the 10pm news playing on their TV, and that helped a little. He was maybe five or six. It was just scary and unsettling, when the people you loved disappeared and you were left in the dark. Maybe he was an insecure kid. But the bathroom is lit fine. And Landry’s coming back. He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about these things right now. 

Jeremy looks down at a fatter-than-usual Patrick. Something about his pleasantly voluptuous figure is calming. 

He feels a lot better afterwards. Except when he burps the beer kind of mixes with his otherwise minty fresh breath and that’s kind of--

“Dude,” Landry lets out a yelp and sits up in his bed, shirtless even though it’s not that warm in the apartment, maybe sixty-five degrees max. “Uh, I thought you were taking the couch,” his eyes kind of wide and wild-looking in a way that Jeremy’s never seen before.

“I—“ Jeremy starts but he doesn’t really know how he was supposed to finish that thought. Maybe he just wanted to test out how soft Landry’s bed was, because those couch cushions no longer held the same appeal they did weeks ago now that he’s been able to afford real pillows. Maybe this is what those reporters meant when they asked if he was going to turn into an all-star diva. Oh man, he thinks, maybe this is him acting out and being selfish—there’s a perfectly good couch out there waiting for him to sleep on it, but here he is, about to become every NBA stereotype—and in the midst of this alcohol-induced inner turmoil his eyes scrape past Landry’s freaked-out face and stop on his hand, not the left one resting on his stomach, but the right one, the one that’s caught in his boxers.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve’s giving an animated reenactment of this one time he got into a bear fight, and it sounds just like a movie Jeremy caught snippets of on TV a few months back, when he had time to watch TV, and sleep, not that he’s complaining though because this is honestly great, probably but hopefully not the best stretch of his life, the one he’ll be telling his grandkids and theirs for ages to come—but Steve’s getting into it, arms boxing it out, and at the crescendo someone slaps them both on the shoulder and Jeremy tenses without knowing why.

“What does bear meat taste like?” Landry’s arm is heavy around Jeremy’s shoulder like he suddenly grew Schwarzenegger guns overnight. The posturing feels forced, and maybe it’s all in Jeremy’s head, but with every step they take Landry’s hand lightly knocks against his chest and he has to try not to think about where that hand was last night, which is a thought no one should ever be thinking, never mind remembering, about their best friend. Ah, shoot. 

“Best thing I’ve ever had in my life,” Steve says, closing his eyes and ejecting a slow muffled sex sound through his lips that makes whatever awkwardness Jeremy might have been imagining with Landry seem suddenly a lot smaller.

“Uh, I believe you,” Jeremy says, with a laugh for good measure, and sneaks a glance at Landry, who’s smiling with his big white teeth like he does when he’s at a colossal loss for words, “Whoa, easy, Steve.” Steve looks his usual mix of bashful and proud and enthusiastically launches into an anecdote about his first and only buffalo sighting ever. 

The story, maybe the soothing cadences of Steve's voice, works as a sort of salve, coaxing loose the strange knot between the two of them. Somewhere in between Jeremy notices Landry noticing him, and when their eyes meet they’re just looking at each other, kind of in a slow, never-ending, platonically awesome way, and Landry squeezes his arm and curves his mouth and Jeremy finally relaxes and thinks, no big deal, why was he so worried over nothing in the first place.


	6. Chapter 6

Funny, but not really, how a loss makes you feel like you might never win again, in the instant of the loss. But then the next one rolls around and you’re in it again and you want it as bad as you ever have, you want it that bad every time.

He’s trying not to check his Twitter mentions this week, because they’re getting harder and harder to swallow, because he knows exactly how every disappointed fan feels, how close and far away they bring themselves every time. He just wants to trust in himself, his team, and Him and he wants everyone else to get that, too, but it’s hard.

They share the room in San Antonio, and it’s a different night, everyone hurting their own quiet way. Landry shuffles a deck of cards with the jokers in them, sitting cross-legged on his bed, the TV’s on in the background about the weather tomorrow, bright but chilly, and Jeremy listens idly to the sound of Iman doing pushups in the next room. Neither of them can sleep, and it’s not unusual anymore, the whole floor will likely be up until three in the morning. Jeremy turns off the lights at one anyway, hoping the darkness will confuse their bodies into temporary hibernation, but he finds himself staring into the black spot on the ceiling where the light should be and in the next bed over Landry’s breathing is too stealth for him to be asleep.

“I keep telling myself,” Jeremy starts, and Landry shifts under his covers, listening, “we’re really blessed to be here. You know?” 

“Yeah,” Landry says, after a moment. “Without a doubt.”

“It’s just—“

“I know, man. You don’t have to say it.”

So Jeremy doesn’t, and they keep the silence a while longer, until, 

“I think Iman’s watching porn,” Landry says.

 

 

Iman is, and it sounds pretty epic from the side of the wall, from which Jeremy can only deduce what it’d be like to be on the other side. Because they’re tired, because they can’t sleep, because they’re bored and mildly emotionally wrecked, Landry kicks off his sheets and rolls out of his bed to jump into Jeremy’s, where “the acoustics on your end are better,” with a creepy glow of a grin, and Jeremy inches over to make way, except “don’t be stealing my blankets, alright,” and Landry isn’t even paying attention because, well. Yeah.

“You ever feel like it’s hard to be good all the time?” Jeremy asks, partly to fill the air with something other than the muted sounds of Iman’s increasingly labored breathing and, um, other stuff. Besides, it doesn’t even feel like Landry’s listening anymore, because he stopped straining his neck up like he was earlier. Now he’s just lying there, on his side of the bed. It’s not intentional, Jeremy thinks, that they’re not touching, but he can feel the slight warmth of body heat just a few inches away, like it’d be there if he needed it.

“Yeah. Sometimes.” Landry sounds sleepy, finally, his voice thick.

“It’s like, this sounds weird, but—“ Jeremy stops just as the female voice in the background hits a climactic _Fuck, yes_. “. . . I lost my train of thought.”

Landry’s laughing.

“Yeah . . . never mind.”

“No, tell me,” Landry draws closer, digs his big toe into the back of Jeremy’s calf. “You can’t just leave it at that.”

“No, it’s weird.”

“It’s fine. I’m used to you saying weird stuff by now.”

Jeremy swallows. There’s a knot in his throat he didn’t realize was there. “You know that night when I, I kinda walked in on you, uh, doing the Iman?”

There’s a silence, and then Landry groans. 

“Seriously, you still remember that?”

“It happened like a week ago.”

“I thought you were wasted.”

“I had, like, two beers.”

“Are you kidding me?” Landry covers his face with both hands, then brings them to his forehead to shield his eyes. “We—look, this is weird.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jeremy wonders if he should continue, because it gets weirder. “So, after that, um,” he breaks off, distracted by the way Landry’s peering at him through his fingers. “Dude, you look like Batman right now.”

“Trying to get you to stop talking.”

“You’re the one who told me to not leave it at that,” Jeremy reminds him.

Landry heaves a sigh, but it sounds too dramatic to be completely serious. Jeremy knows this, whatever this is, is way out of both their comfort zones but it’s probably past two by now and important chunks of his brain have already shut down, the chunks that would normally let him know when to shut up or “Abort! Abort!” like some of his friends would say.

“Okay so after that,” Jeremy continues, “I kinda . . . did the same thing. In the bathroom.”

He hears Landry suck in his breath. “Oh shit.”

And immediately after that he hears what he just said aloud, like instant replay, again and again, and that—was not a good idea. 

“Okay, pretend that never happened,” he says quickly, and turns onto his side.

“I don’t know what to say, man,” and Jeremy believes him. He wouldn’t either.

“But,” Landry continues, kind of soft and goading. “Why’d you think that happened?”

They aren’t touching except where Landry’s toe was poking his calf earlier, but Jeremy can feel his breath on the back of his neck, a hot, small puff of air every time he says something. A dull headache is developing in his temples, telling him sleep would probably welcome him into its arms now this time if he let it. He contemplates letting it, and letting the question wait until the morning, or maybe fade into oblivion or wherever awkward unanswered questions go to quietly perish, because he doesn’t know. But then he feels it. Landry’s knee angling into the back of his, his arm gently draping over Jeremy’s, turning him until they’re facing again.

“I know,” Landry says, soft, “It’s hard to be good,” and they’re so close that the distant heat from earlier is now a palpable presence, suffocating. Jeremy murmurs, “Yeah,” and Landry moves in, eyes too dark to see, pulls him in, Jeremy allowing himself to be pulled, until their noses brush and Landry’s shallow breaths echo against Jeremy’s skin. He wants to say something, something like, “This is bad,” and he almost does, but he feels the prickle of stubble graze just above his upper lip, Landry nudging their noses together, painfully uncertain, and Jeremy parts his lips, instinctively, until they’re kissing, fuck. Landry makes a tight sound in his throat, half-shocked and half starved for more, more contact, more touching, wraps his leg over Jeremy’s, presses into Jeremy’s thigh until he can feel his erection.

“This is bad,” Jeremy gets out, finally, but his body isn’t listening, and he wants, because he’s tired and it feels good so maybe it’s okay. It’s not okay. It’s not okay, but they’re both so tired, and Landry’s warm around him, against him, and Landry’s hard in the same way that he’s been hard and trying to hide it, the same way that he’s been hard and ashamed for the last fifteen minutes.

“What are you doing,” Jeremy murmurs, and Landry says, with as close to a laugh as they’ll both get tonight, “Kissing you,” and slips his hand under Jeremy’s t-shirt. Reflexively Jeremy tenses, but Landry isn’t even doing anything, only rubbing small circles into his hip, testing the waters. It’s weird, Landry and his hot, sweaty palms, which he’s probably used on a lot of cheerleaders and Rachel McAdams types by now—no way girls wouldn’t have been into that, Jeremy’s seen photos of his gangly, freckled high school self, can imagine the slightly less polished self-deprecating wit, the kind of thing chicks eat up if they already think you’re good-looking—Jeremy’s still working on it, but thing is, he’s not that good-looking, just tall, not like Landry. Fuck where his mind’s at, he blinks, and Landry’s just staring at him, nervous, unsteady, hands still on his hips.

“Fuck, this is messed up,” Jeremy says, and there’s a second, slow, timed, before Landry pulls away and leans back, sits on the corner of the bed with his knees drawn in, neither of them looking at the other. 

They sit for a while not saying anything, and then Landry stands up. “Alright,” he says, and returns to his own bed.


End file.
